


What the Water gave Me

by karrenia_rune



Category: Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Fic or Treat Meme, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Mélusine - Freeform, Princes & Princesses, Yuletide 2012
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:44:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A retelling of an old German/French fairy tale of the nixie, or water-sprite Melusine and how she and her Prince found each other, especially when the prince in this story had been raised to not believe in love at first sight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What the Water gave Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [calenlily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calenlily/gifts).



"What the Water gave Me" 

His horse is saddled and bridled and shoed, but without the additional layer of armor that it would otherwise have had on if the reason for his departure from the city were one of a more dire nature. While he waited for the gate wardens to haul on the well-oiled mechanisms that will open the portcullis and let him out of the castle, it occurred to him that a military drill or an inspection, would make for plausible alibis should anyone question him too closely.

Instead, the warden’s nod and bow, and one or two even give him a salute as he rides out of the gate. The Prince does not look back, knowing that while it is early in the day, the dull disk of the sun barely showing over the castle parapets, his father, might be up and taken it into his head to peer out of the high arched windows. The fact that the old man is still up could only mean one of two things, one that h has not yet been to bed, to sleep, cursed insomnia, thinks the son, or two, that the old man is on the lookout for his son’s sudden departures.

The farther he traveled the more he thought that it just what he needs, the open air, the warm sun, the fresh perspective on things; it helps clear his head and not just because the castle is rather dreary even at the best of times. 

It could just be that it’s the first day of spring and the bon vivants that surround him almost constantly of late among the upper nobility have been regaling him with stories about how he has to ‘sow his wild oats.’  
Then again, while it is rumored about the countryside of new art of courtly love songs and travelling troubadours that have begun to make the performance into an art form, he has only seen one or two of such performers make an appearance in his family’s castle. This is mostly due to both distance, and the fact that his father’s old tyrannical soul simply could not appreciate art for art’s sake.

In reflection, as he glanced around the landscape, the clip-clop of his horse’s hooves serving as a counterpoint to the drip of rain off the leaves of the trees, and the trill of the brook that rush past, that he was being a bit harsh in his old man’s character. A son, much less a prince, owed much more in the ways of filial duty to his sire than that? In any case, he was not out here looking for music, or even inspiration for his own hand at poetry, but for something much more ephemeral, something much more difficult to name. 

When midday arrived and he paused to tie his horse to a branch of a willow tree near a wide lake, with a few of the village just beyond it, the Prince knelt down to scoop up a double handful of water, and then another, chancing to catch a glimpse of his own reflection in the rippling mirrored-surface. For a while, he stood over it, rather bemused with he saw, not too fine, not too coarse, just rather average, with dark brown almost black hair, hazel eyes, and down-turned at the mouth look about his face.

At that point, Conrad, figured that he really should decide what he wanted out of his life, when something he saw in the water startled him out of his meandering thoughts. Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly another reflection had almost seamlessly merged with his own, to the point, to his mind’s eye it seemed as if they were two murky souls in one. He blinked, rubbed his eyes and when he looked once more the two reflections had separated, but there were indeed two, one his own, the other a face that belonged to a woman, or at least one much more feminine, but the chin was strong, the eyes green and up-slanted and the green streaming out from a peak at the crown of her head. Soon, before he could quite make sense of this, it became more than just a reflection, as a woman clade in a diaphanous white gown stepped out of the lake and stood with her hands on her hips, regarding him quite boldly. 

“Madam,” he stammered.

In well-rounded but ever so slightly accented French, the woman replied. “Well, well, I was expecting you along one of these fine days.”

Conrad replied. “You were expecting me?”

“Well, yes, you felt it too, did you not, the way our reflections merged into one another’s? If that had not occurred, I might well have been obliged to do one of two things.”

“Which are?”

“One, is much less enjoyable than the latter, and I now that I’ve laid eyes on you, my handsome Prince, I find I the former not an issue.”

“That does not answer my question,” replied Conrad.

“Allow me to introduce myself; I am Melusine, the guardian of this lake, and the waters that lead to the sea.

“Pardon me, mademoiselle if I seem rude, or even a bit tactless, I am afraid I am long out of practice when it comes to addressing the fairer sex, but you are a naiad?”

“Naiad, water=sprite, all of my kind have had and no doubt will continue to have many names throughout the centuries, so much so, that it makes no difference,” replied Melusine.  
“Melusine,” Conrad murmured, trying out the difficult syllables and finding that he quite loved how they rolled off of his tongue, and then nodded,” you were saying?”

“Yes, more than likely you are familiar. You are young, handsome, and single, are you not?”  
Feeling mixed emotions of interest in this fascinating and beautiful creatures, and a little bit of wariness of her at the same time, Conrad could simply nod.

“Well, then, if you will have me for your wife, I will be yours and yours alone, one condition.”

“What is the condition?” asked Conrad.

“That upon every Saturday of every month that I am allowed to take a bath, alone, and that you must never intrude or in way look upon as I do so,” replied Melusine.”

Conrad nodded, “I shall do so, my lady!”

“Then so, we are resolved,” replied Melusine, as she glided forward, took his hand in hers and pressed the two palms thus entwined over each of their hearts.

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the Florence and the Machine song by the same name.


End file.
